The Woman in the Hall

<p><em>She didn’t want men to be in love with her. She wanted power and a dangerous gamble and the fun of winning and putting herself over as a sweet saviour, till at last she came to believe it herself.</em></p><p>Lorna Blake is a woman able to create her own reality: a swindler with nerves of steel, gifted manipulator and devoted single mother to two daughters. When her eldest needs lifesaving treatment she cannot afford, Lorna begins a risky but thrilling scheme; taking her daughters to the hallways of London mansions to beg with tales of a husband at turns dangerous, deserting and dead. But as years pass and Lorna continues to wring pity and pounds from wealthy strangers, her victims start closing in.</p><p>Acted out in the hallways of London mansions and across several continents, <em>The Woman in the Hall</em> is part psychological drama, part cat-and-mouse chase, as well as a darkly comic portrait of how the figure of a single mother could wring pity from 1930s society.</p>